Gift of Happiness
by ConfusedColumbia26220
Summary: Why not get a little festive with some Swan Queen Christmas fluff! Post 4x11, no 4B.


**AN: Surprise! Two oneshots two days in a row! Cover found via Google, creator unknown. **

****Knock. Knock. Knock. Ignore it and it will go away…right. Knock. Knock. Knock.

"DING DONG!"

Regina snorted. "Immature child," she muttered to herself. She definitely knew who was at the door now. No way was she letting her inside. She didn't care what day it was.

"DING DONG! DING DONG! DING DONG! DING – "

The door was yanked open to reveal a snarling Regina inside. "Are you broken, Miss Swan?"

A familiar tenor voice spoke from outside Regina's vision, "I told you being obnoxious would work."

Regina peered around the doorframe to spot her son. "What are you two up to now?"

"It's Christmas, Regina!" Emma's voice was annoyingly enthusiastic and her face was mostly hidden by a big pile of brightly, hideously wrapped boxes.

"I'm not in a celebratory mood," Regina deadpanned.

"Mom, don't be a Scrooge, it's only once a year."

"You could be with – "

"Don't bother finishing that sentence, Mom. Baby's first Christmas? No thanks. Love Uncle Neal and all, but the attention is going to be all on him."

"These are getting heavy, Regina, let us in. Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaase?"

"Stop whimpering, you'll give me a migraine." Regina reluctantly stepped back and held the door open. "Not like I get a choice or anything."

Emma walked in, passing her with all the boxes, presumably presents, but there were decorative items in there as well.

"Mom, seriously," Henry's tone matched the word as he stepped up to her, almost nose to nose with her at this point. "I'm not letting you be miserable on Christmas. And neither is Emma."

"Because your grandparents are annoying? That's a simple fact. Anywhere would be better than around them."

"That's not true, Mom. They're not that bad. And even if they are annoying and that apartment seems to shrink every day, I want to be with you today. It's tradition. You used to love Christmas, even after Snow gave me the book, we still had Christmas together, even when I didn't like you very much. And we didn't get to last year."

Regina sighed and pulled her boy into a hug. By next year he'd be passing her in height, she was sure. "I'll try, sweetheart."

Henry hugged is mother back and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "That's all I can ask for, right?" He smiled at her before letting go and closing the door that had still been standing wide open, locking it out of habit.

Regina turned and stepped up the few steps that lead into the house and nearly tripped over her feet when she saw all the lights lining the banister of the staircase that hadn't been there a moment ago. "What the hell did you do? How?"

Emma smirked and popped up in front of her out of nowhere, successfully startling Regina, who jumped a couple inches backwards.

"I'm a ninja," the blonde stated simply. "That's nothing though. Wait 'til you see the living room."

Sure enough, Christmas appeared to have thrown up everywhere in the living room, complete with a decorated Christmas tree that had all the colored boxes scattered beneath it. The room was all reds and greens and blues and whites with some golds and some silvers thrown in. It was like going through the Christmas door in a Nightmare Before Christmas, a portal to another world entirely. It was better than she'd ever decorated when Henry was a child.

"Magic," Regina concluded. "Cheater."

"Well, there was hardly time to get it all done by hand."

"I'm impressed the house hasn't burnt down. Yet."

"The only way I'd do that is if you pissed me off, so, just don't do that and the house is safe."

Regina snorted. "We'll see. I make no promises."

Henry could tell his mothers were only teasing, which was good. This was going better than they realistically thought it would, it was getting closer to how they'd hoped it would go.

"Well, come on!" Emma proceeded to drag each Mills over to the couch by their wrists, lightly pushing them both down onto it but not sitting there herself. She sat by the tree and its array of presents. She hunted for the one she was looking for, and then placed it in Regina's lap.

Regina stared down at it in confusion. It even had her name on it. "This…is for me?"

"Mmhm. Open it."

Regina just stared at it some more.

"It's not going to bite, Mom."

Regina finally tore off the wrapping. It was a photo album. "What is this?"

Emma sat herself down on the couch beside her. "You gave Henry and I the gift of memories once. This, in a way, is our gift of memories to you. There are tons of pictures in here from that missing year. Even the bad ones. Even the ones with the monkey. Whatever pictures were taken on Henry's camera, even if it's just some random building, they're all there. So now you can see what you've missed, and that should make things a little better."

Regina felt her lower lip trembling as she hesitatingly flipped through the pages. It was true. New York was plastered all over. Henry, Emma, Henry's friends, the flying monkey Emma nearly married, buildings, animals, the sky, everything. She looked between the two of them. "You planned this."

Both nodded.

"As soon as I got my memories back, I wanted to give something back to you," Henry told Regina. "Even with Zelena attacking and all."

"And as soon as you dropped that plate or whatever in the diner and I saw that look on your face, I wanted to, too. I started working on it before Henry even got his memories back. Even if I wanted to go back to New York, I wanted you to have something. Obviously I changed my mind about leaving, so Henry and I decided Christmas would be the perfect time to give it to you."

Regina opened her mouth, but she didn't even know what to say. Catching sight of one of the pictures, something found its way out of her mouth anyway, "You got a tattoo?" She looked at Emma, surprised.

"Oh, you mean this?" Emma held up her left wrist, pulling back her sleeve enough to reveal the flower. "I've had it since I was a teenager, before I even had Henry. I hadn't even met Neal, yet."

Henry grinned. "Emma, Mom."

"Yes?" they asked in unison, both looking at him.

"Remember how I found that library filled with books like mine, only blank? Well, I was doing a solo mission for Operation Mongoose, and I found that some pages were hiding in between the books. Most of them were random and had nothing to do with you or anyone I know that well, so I didn't pay much attention to them. But I found this." He drew a page from his pocket, folded, handing it over to Emma. "I almost forgot about it, you just reminded me of it."

Emma unfolded it curiously. Regina peered over her shoulder, being nosy.

"Emma, that's your tattoo," the brunette stated as soon as she saw the picture of an identical flower to the one tattooed on Emma's wrist.

"I see that… 'Clematis Ville de Lyon'. Huh, I didn't know that's what the flower is called. I thought it was a daisy or something."

"Read what it says!" Henry was practically bouncing on the couch, and both mothers could feel the vibrations it caused.

"'_At her sixteenth year, the Savior shall bear this marking. Twelve years passed, her prophecy shall be fulfilled. For twenty-eight years from birth, exact, shall the child come to her. He shall return her, and she shall break her True Love's Dark Curse with True Love's Kiss. The Light of the Savior shall destroy the Evil of the Queen.'"_

Silence.

Then, "A Lyon flower?" Regina blinked. A shaky laugh escaped her. "The fairy's an idiot!" she snorted.

"Uhhh…Regina, would you like to clue me in?" Emma asked, puzzled. That was not the reaction she'd expected if what she'd just read meant what it sounded like it meant.

"Forever ago, Tinkerbelle saved me from a fall with her magic and sort of just stuck around. She told me I needed love, and broke fairy laws to get extra pixie dust to lead me to that person who was supposed to be my True Love. She said, 'Look for the man with the lion tattoo'. Lion and Lyon sound exactly the same, so, easy mistake I guess."

"Kid?" Emma looked past Regina at Henry. "What are you wanting to happen here?"

"It kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it?" Henry didn't know why they weren't excited. He thought they were all on the same page with Operation Mongoose.

"It contradicts itself is what it does. This is the same person who decided Regina wouldn't get a happy ending in the book you have, which is the only complete book we know about. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, not right now. I already accidentally broke Regina once, I don't want to do it again."

Henry's smile was back. "That means you care about her, that's a start. The book is always changing anyway, Emma." He happened to glance up for a brief moment, and something caught his eye that wasn't there before. "Mmhmm. Explain that up there, then. It wasn't there a second ago."

Both women looked up. Mistletoe. It wasn't even attached to anything, just floating other both women's heads, a strand of purple and a strand of white magic swirling around it.

"It's us," Regina stated. "That's obviously our magic." She looked at Emma, stunned.

"We don't have to –"

Emma was cut off by a mouthful of lips.

Henry was quick to snap a picture, he wanted to remember it no matter what it led to, or if it led to anything at all.

There was a burst of light that came with the kiss typical of breaking a curse, with a little something extra. It showed the cursed who did the cursing.

Regina gasped as the kiss broke. "That book didn't curse me, my mother did!" She shook her head. "'Only the person whose heart I can not crush shall have my daughter's love', she said."

Emma laughed. "She obviously never thought of me, then."

"See!" Henry clapped. "Even if it takes a ridiculously long time, everything always works out."

"Wait a second," Regina paused. "What about Hook? I am not doing this other person thing all over again."

"Oh, that's right, I guess you don't know."

"Know what?"

"Hook and I are done. Apparently Henry told Hook he didn't like him with me. Come to think of it, I don't think you much liked the thought of him being with me either, except I thought it was for a totally different reason at the time."

"Does he know you're done?"

"Yeah, he, surprisingly, is actually the one who broke it off. He said he wasn't going to get between a woman and her child again. It was probably the most selfless thing he's ever done."

"Guys." Henry grinned.

"What?" they asked in unison.

"I think Operation Mongoose is a success."

Emma smiled at Regina. "I guess it's a good thing you spotted my tattoo, huh?"

Regina rolled her eyes. "Let's not credit a tattoo."

"How about our genius kid?"

"Hmmm…better."

"How about…all the times we've mentally undressed each other since we met?"

Henry covered his ears. "Lalalalalalalala, I can't heeeeeaaaaaar yoooooooooou!"

Regina snorted. "Look what you started."

"I didn't do anything!" Emma held her hands up innocently.

"Well, what else is under there?" Regina nodded towards the tree.

Emma moved to get another present. "Well, a certain teenager spilled the beans about a certain someone's fondness for Freddy Krueger, so…" She handed the box to Regina. "Open it."

Regina tore the wrapping more enthusiastically than the first one, opening the lid. "Is this…Is this what I think it is?"

"If you think it's a black and red stripped blazer with a black pencil skirt, a black fedora, and red heels, picked to highly resemble Freddy's costume, then yes. Yes it is. Now you can be the nightmare."

Regina cackled. "That's fabulous! That's – That's great. Really creative. But how did you know my sizes."

"You don't pay much attention to when your clothes go missing, do you?" Henry asked.

Regina shook her head. "He gets that kleptomania from you."

Emma shrugged, not about to deny it. "But wait, there's more!" she imitated an advertiser on TV commercials. She grabbed another box. "All the classics on DVD, plus Freddy vs. Jason. You won't even want to bother with the remakes, trust me."

Regina opened it to find Emma indeed spoke correct, they were all there. "You've planned this out a bit, haven't you?"

"Not entirely. But Amazon is amazing, so I figured I'd throw those in, too. Living in a small town isn't so bad when the mail can bring you just about anything you want."

"How is that possible? Storybrooke isn't attached to the national mailing system."

"Ah, but the apartment in New York is. I poof the mail from there to here. I'm getting really good with this whole magic thing."

"You still technically have an apartment in New York?"

Emma shrugged. "Well, it's paid for. Why get rid of it? I might want a vacation someday. Though now, it could be the three of us. We're the ones who can leave, fancy that, while everyone else is stuck here lest they lose their memories."

Regina looked at her. "So, you really want to try this?"

"I just broke your curse thingy because our magic put a damn mistletoe over our heads without our will. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is."

Henry grinned and tackled his mothers with a hug, squeezing them tightly. "Best Christmas ever, Moms!" He pressed kisses to each of their cheeks. "I'm so glad you finally let us in," he whispered to his brunette mother. "This worked out better than I dared to let myself hope."

"Kid," Emma rasped out. "You're squishing us."

Henry eased his grip. "Sorry," he blushed slightly. "I'm just really happy."

Emma smiled. "Me too." She looked at Regina. "As long as your mother pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaassseeee let's us stay here tonight so we don't have to go home and trip all over Neal's new toys."

Regina laughed. "Oh, come now, I'm not that evil. Thanks to a certain someone, I'm no stranger to knowing what stepping on a Lego feels like."

Emma grinned and kissed her.

"Grosssssssss!" There were only inches separating Henry's head from those of his mothers, and he really didn't need to be that close to the action.

Chuckling into the kiss, the two merely wrapped their arms around him and kept him locked there, enjoying Henry's childlike protests to their torture.

"Aaaaaah! Noooooo! I'm being attacked, someone, saaaaaaaaave meeeeeeeee!"

It was safe to say, Regina had a very happy Christmas that year, after all.


End file.
